• Introduction
• An international movement
• Coordinating a WDP service
• WDP 2007: Paraguay
• WDP 2008: Guyana
• Quadrennial 2007
• History
• Information Sheet
  (MSWord: 320K)
• WDP ordering information

• 
• Media Release
  Activist to be keynote speaker at international gathering
  (MSWord: 31K)
• Mary Jo Leddy biography

WDPIC Executive Biographies

World Day of Prayer

Quadrennial 2007

Local volunteers make Quadrennial a success!

Nearly 180 World Day of Prayer delegates, representing 93 countries, met just north of Toronto from May 30 to June 5, 2007 at the first Quadrennial meeting held in Canada. Local volunteers helped make this international gathering a success, spending many hours driving to and from the airport, helping with registration and other tasks, and hosting delegates at their churches and homes prior to a public reception June 3.

Delegates were inspired by keynote speaker Mary Jo Leddy, attended workshops on HIV/AIDS and women’s power and empowerment, worked in administrative committees, and took in Bible studies led by Professor Dr. Ulrike Bechmann, Old Testament Scholar at the Institute for Religious Studies at the University of Graz in Austria, and the Rev. Dr. J. Dorcas Gordon, Principal and Associate Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Knox College at the Toronto School of Theology. The event concluded with a daytrip on June 6 to Niagara Falls, organized by WICC and the Canadian host committee made up of representatives of local churches.

Delegates choose new chairperson

Annette Poitier, from the Bahamas, was chosen as the next chairperson of the World Day of Prayer International Committee (WDPIC). Poitier, who succeeds Canadian Sylvia Lisk Vanhaverbeke, was elected for a four-year term by international delegates attending the WDPIC Quadrennial meeting.

WDP themes and countries chosen

The following themes and writing countries for the years 2012 to 2015 were chosen by delegates at the recent Quadrennial meeting of the WDPIC:

• WDP 2012: Malaysia - "Let Justice Prevail"
• WDP 2013: France - "I was a stranger and you welcomed me"
• WDP 2014: Egypt - "Streams in the desert"
• WDP 2015: The Bahamas - "Do you know what I have done to you?"

The themes and countries were chosen by members of the WDPIC Themes Working Group. For a list of themes and countries, and more information about the international committee, click here.

International delegates attend Quadrennial meeting

Women from 93 countries, representing their WDP National Committees, attended the Quadrennial meeting of the World Day of Prayer International Committee (WDPIC) from May 30 to June 5, 2007, at Seneca College, King City, just north of Toronto.  This is the first time a Quadrennial meeting has been held in Canada.

The World Day of Prayer is a world wide ecumenical movement of prayer and action centered in an annual worship service held on the first Friday of March. Each year the service is written by a group of women from a different country, translated into more than 90 languages and celebrated in tens of thousands of local communities in about 170 countries, including more than 2,000 communities across Canada.

The WDPIC – currently chaired by a Canadian, Sylvia Lisk Vanhaverbeke of Newcastle, Ontario – meets every four years to share experiences of World Day of Prayer, hold regional meetings, select themes and writer countries for the annual worship service, elect an Executive Committee, and consider ways by which the movement may grow.  Previous gatherings have been held in Sweden, Thailand, Mexico, Zambia, Germany, United States, Jamaica, Australia, South Africa and England.

Toronto’s meeting, on the event theme “I will put my breath into you, and you shall live” (Ezekiel 37:14), included the following highlights:

• The opening keynote address by Mary Jo Leddy, author, activist and director of Romero House for Refugees in Toronto
• Bible studies led by the Rev. Dr. J. Dorcas Gordon, Principal and Associate Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Knox College, Toronto School of Theology (University of Toronto) and Professor Dr. Ulrike Bechmann, Old Testament scholar at the Institute for Religious Studies at the University of Graz, Austria
• Workshops on HIV/AIDS facilitated by a team of resource people from Canada, as well as the Caribbean, Pacific and Latin American regions
• An ecumenical reception attended by delegates, WDPIC Executive Committee, members of the public and members of the media
• Visits with area hosts to attend worship at local churches and sightsee in Toronto
• International displays and cultural presentations of song and dance
• A trip to Niagara Falls following the meeting.

The Quadrennial meeting was hosted by the Women’s Inter-Church Council of Canada (WICC) and a local ecumenical committee drawn from the Toronto area.